Thursday, December 22, 2011

Well I can finally share more ... it's taken me awhile to get this far. First an unexpected surgery then weeks and weeks of bed rest. But I put all that time in hospital and at home to good use.

Remember those 1200 hexagons I planned to take to Seattle with me? Well, since we had to cancel our trip I never bothered with the bag I planned to make. Just as well because it would have been waaaay to small. Instead I tossed them in one of my Longaberger baskets, gave them a good shake to mix them up and propped it up on the back of the sofa.

Before you know it one was sewn to the other and another and another. Until I had "blocks" of 25 ... in fact I've made 20 blocks of 25 already! So 500 of 1200 are sewn together and I'm not losing steam. I'm telling you these things are addictive.

It helps that I couldn't do anything else ... at least not flat on my back. Knitting and crochet were impossible. Applique and traditional piecing were pretty difficult too.

But hexagons? Oh yeh, bring them on!

A few weeks ago the doctor said I could get up and about more but that only lasted a week before he sent me back to the sofa again.

But ... Tuesday ... he gave me the all clear. So I really feel like I can share the progress on the biggest project of my life!

We're pregnant ... with twins ... due in June

and we couldn't be any happier.

We've spent a lot of time wandering and tiptoeing and cartwheeling through the clouds lately. Can it be? Is it true? Well yes! Those ultrasounds don't lie. Instead of blobs with heartbeats (which is as far as we've gotten in the past) we have two little beings bouncing around inside me! Each with a heart beating strongly, two waving arms and two kicking legs and more! It all seems so unreal.

So as you can imagine we are looking forward to celebrating Christmas with big smiles this year! I've managed to do a little bit of baking and tomorrow we'll go have tea and cookies with my old quilting gang from Mülheim. Then we're spending Christmas Eve with Axel's parents, his aunt, cousins (two) and their children (four). The traditional meal is fondue - one pot of cheese and two pots of broth for meats with lots of condiments and great crusty bread. Everyone brings a salad ... this year we're contributing Carrot & Raisin salad .. my lastest love (or is it a craving?).

So I wish you all a wonderful wonderful Christmas and the very happiest of New Years! May the sewing, quilting and crafting elves visit you in their sleep and sprinkle you with magic dust.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

I can't tell you how excited I am about Christmas this year! I promise I'll share more soon but it's been busy and hectic and all for the very right reasons.

Yesterday I was teaching an ongoing Crazy Class .. Antoinette's theme is Christmas and she had a rectangular space she needed to fill. Yeh, dumb .. I didn't take pictures but I promise to next time I see her.

Well we looked at her quilt for awhile and then decided she needed a sleigh. So I sat down and drew one.

She was tickled, I loved the 5 minutes it took to draw and we both thought you might enjoy it too.

Antoinette plans to applique the body of the sleigh and the presents, the runners and decoration will be embroidered with 6-strand floss and the bows on the packages might be silk ribbon embroidery. But you could do anything you want. If I had the time I was thinking simple redwork .. how about you? If you stitch it, I'd love to see it. Please email me a picture, link to your blog or post it in our Flickr group.

So this will print out at ... I don't know ... whatever size. But you are welcome to enlarge or reduce it to fit your needs.

~ here's a very quick tip to enlarge or reduce any design ~

Measure the design you have. Then determine the size you want. Use the length or height ... it doesn't matter. Then take what you WANT and divide by what you HAVE. So if this sleigh currently measures 10" long and you want it to be 6" you'd divide 6 by 10 and get .60 which converts to 60%. Yep, that's the number you plug into your copy machine. It works the same for enlarging .. you want it bigger, let's say 12". Well then 12 divided by 10 is 1.2 which converts to 120%. Voila!

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Atelier

ABOUT ME

i'm a washington (state! vs DC) girl married to a tall german living in belgium. i own a little quilt shop and love to teach and design ... i'm always busy - getting inspired, making things, cooking, baking, quilting, gardening.